


Snuff Out the Stars (Let Me Fall from Your Arms)

by running_with_stars



Series: Under Darkness (Ugly Flowers Bloom) [2]
Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gangsters, Angst, Awkward Romance, Blackmail, Blood and Injury, Drama, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Manipulation, Familial ties just happen when you run a gang together, Family Dynamics, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, M/M, Major Character Injury, No beta we die like my soul, Organized Crime, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Rescue Missions, Romance is going to be here but it's not terribly important to the plot, Surprisingly Morally Sound Gangsters, Torture, Violence, the usual
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:16:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27685469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/running_with_stars/pseuds/running_with_stars
Summary: Peace was not something they expected--not with the lives they led. There would always be a gun firing, a building left smouldering after they walked away.But this . . . They couldn't have planned for this.ORMX is a gang known for pushing the limits of the law and rarely breaking them, until Kihyun is presented with evidence that one of his crew is reporting their moves to the authorities. His life becomes knots of lies and half-truths, with no promise of how long it will last until there's blood spilled on the floor.He might just be the first gang leader to break everythingbutthe law.
Relationships: Other Relationship Tags to Be Added, Undisclosed Relationship(s)
Series: Under Darkness (Ugly Flowers Bloom) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2024524
Kudos: 6





	1. The End

There was a small black hole, not ten feet from him, infinitely dark and begging to steal his breath. It was not the first time he had stared down one like it, but it was the first time he genuinely feared he would not be able to pull himself out from its gravity. 

The first time he thought that walking _into it_ was the only choice. 

He thought he heard voices, achingly familiar in their cadence, scream and hiss; demand he walk out, salvage whatever and whomever he could. 

But to leave them was unthinkable. His schemes would never be so clever without a lanky pair of hands sketching admittedly clever notes in bent lines across the top. His heart was never calmer than when there were two furnace-warm bodies at his side. 

And so he stared down the barrel, into the eye of the black hole, and readied himself to be dragged in. Walked into it, fingers oddly steady as he thumbed the device in his pocket. 

"I knew you were stupid," said the voice behind the black hole, "but you still managed to surprise me."

He stopped walking when the barrel seared the skin above his heart. When was the last time it had been fired? How many bullets would be stuck in his chest when all was said and done?

It didn't matter. What mattered now was quieting the familiar voices, roughened by fear and pain. 

What mattered now was getting them out. 

"You know," he said, heart beating against the unforgiving metal of the gun, "you made a mistake."

The gun twitched against his chest. The eyes sat above them glinted. "And what would that be?"

"You invited me here thinking I would do anything to get out. But the only thing you've done is make me reckless."

Ivory split apart in the navy darkness, grin cutting like any blade. "Oh, no. _You've_ misunderstood _me_." A _click_ swept through the air. " _That was the plan._ "

Somehow, the screaming voices were still louder than the gunshot. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come say hi or yell at me on [curious cat](https://curiouscat.qa/runningwstars)?
> 
> follow me on [twitter!](https://twitter.com/runningwstars) it's a new account and very . . . Tiny(TM), but I hope it'll become a good time.


	2. Chapter 1

“You’re trying to get us killed.”

Big eyes blinked at him, unimpressed. “If I were trying to do that, I’d go through a lot less trouble.”

Not for the first time, Kihyun considered the logistics of leaping out the window. The only thing stopping him was the fact that he knew no one would bother to repair it.

“Look,” Hyungwon continued, “the plan is not as crazy as you’re making it sound.”

“It absolutely the hell is.”

“You just lack creativity.”

 _There’s going to be a draft_ , he told himself. _The window is going to remain broken, and there’s going to be a draft, and your office is going to get cold, and no one is going to care_. And so Kihyun made sure he did not, in fact, jump out the window.

But fuck if it wasn’t tempting.

“You’re going to show the entire goddamn country where we are,” he said.

Hyungwon clicked his tongue. “That’s the whole point.”

“Hardly!” Kihyun squawked.

Hyungwon was undoubtedly going to say something infuriating, but Kihyun was spared the experience of listening; the door to his office opened wide, revealing Changkyun with hair matted down and dust smeared on his cheek. He smelled disgustingly sweet, almost acrid.

“Changkyun,” he said slowly, “what the fuck happened?”

“That precinct with the weird detectives,” Changkyun muttered. “They got brave. I think I accidentally shot one of them.”

“Which one?”

Changkyun’s eyes went wide. “Does it _matter?”_

“It does,” Kihyun insisted, “because if it was one of the younger officers you shot, every deal we’ve ever made with their unit is off.”

“Uh . . . small face, long legs, death glare.”

“Then you’re fine,” Kihyun said around a relieved sigh. “Just try not to do it again.”

Changkyun nodded, but as he walked off he mumbled, “How am I supposed to know who not to shoot if they’re not wearing signs?”

“YOU BETTER SHOWER BEFORE YOU GO ANYWHERE ELSE!” Kihyun shouted after him.

Hyungwon’s chortle was nothing short of undignified. “You _are_ a den mother.”

“If I didn’t need that face of yours to get me into high places,” Kihyun grumbled, “it would be riddled with bullets.”

But Hyungwon was finished with their games; Kihyun knew professional coldness when he saw it. “’Kyun was sent to that plant, wasn’t he? The one that used to make corn syrup?”

“He was,” Kihyun confirmed. “I wouldn’t go so far as to call it ‘the perfect meetup spot for all things villainy,’ but it certainly comes close. Abandoned warehouses are good for that sort of thing.”

“That means that things went sideways, if Changkyun came back to us covered in rotten sweetener and gun powder.”

“The 78th precinct will make a cover story.” At Hyungwon’s arched brow, he said, “That Detective Bang sent his men in there with about as much good intention as the devil himself. If we go down, so does he and the rest of his unit.”

“You’re playing fast and loose here, Ki.”

“You know I do nothing of the sort.”

Hyungwon’s smile was small, but the amusement in his eyes wasn’t. “No, I guess not. We’d be dead by now if you did.” He rose from his chair, flipping his Glock back into his suit jacket with a flourish. “I’m gonna go check up on that extraction from the States.”

“You get any word on it yet?”

Hyungwon let out a soft snort. “What do _you_ think?”

Kihyun just sighed through his nose. “Well, they’ve yet to fuck us over. Let’s hope it stays that way.”

Just as Hyungwon was about to leave, he craned his neck back to lock eyes with Kihyun. “Word on the street is that the 78th precinct is planning a move against Taewoo Im.”

“The actual precinct,” Kihyun cautioned, “or _the 78 th precinct?”_

Again, Hyungwon asked, “What do you think?”

“They can chase him around all they like.” Kihyun delicately threw himself into his desk chair. “It’s none of my business.”

He wasn’t ready for the unnameable tenderness that took root in Hyungwon’s expression. “Ki—”

“Whatever the outcome of that little spat,” Kihyun said deliberately, “we lose an enemy. There is no downside.”

“How are you gonna keep the flow of information from the police to us?”

Now Kihyun was the one to smile. “You haven’t been at this long enough if you think corrupt cops aren’t a dime a dozen.”

“I’ve been at this long enough that theirs is the only sort of corruption you _want_ to associate with.”

“Hyungwon,” Kihyun lilted, sweet like a tropical flower and equally poisonous, “do I need to remind you that I’m your boss, and that you’re treading _very_ dangerous waters with me right now?”

Hyungwon was gone with a wave and the click of Kihyun’s door shutting. Only then did he slump back into his seat. He swiped the notepad from where it lay next to his elbow, scrawling a few things across the page.

  1. _Make sure Changkyun was not tied to the scene in any way_
  2. _Give Bang a little push; the files exist for a reason_
  3. _Double check on the status of the retrieval. * CRUCIAL*_



He set the pen down then, trailing a finger across the numerous scars running down his arms and legs. Someone had played cartographer and mapped out his pain with a knife, mountains of scars and valleys of dimpled flesh curling around his joins.

He waited a moment, twirling the pen in his hands before writing:

  1. _If Taewoo Im is not dead in four weeks, kill him yourself._



He really hoped it wouldn’t come down to that. Or, he thought, maybe that was all he _could_ hope for.

_What a mess . . ._

A glint at his window caught his attention, and suddenly his thoughts were nothing more than a static, or the heart of a river. A gun strapped beneath his arm, ammo in the top right drawer; throwing knife pressed to his left forearm, more hid between the spines of books he’d never so much as touched; silent alert button hung behind that God-awful painting next to the bookshelf. He would not be caught off guard, least of all in his own territory.

He thought he saw a silhouette, gun in his hands before he could even think to grab it. His arm was steady as he took aim at whatever he’d seen, but there was nothing there except sickly blue sky and titanic skyscrapers. Even on the top floor in the heart of a corporate hub, he couldn’t be too careful. Without taking his eyes off the window, he slid his phone out of his pocket and pressed the contact he knew by heart.

As soon as the line was picked up on the other end, he said, “Get here, now,” before hanging up.

Predictably, the door crashed open not a full minute later. “What’s wrong?”

“Has there been any suspicious activity in the area?” he asked, pocketing his gun. “The sort that I should have been notified of?”

Hoseok straightened himself, face twisted in confusion. “Not that I’ve heard. Why?”

Kihyun was going to reply—nothing ever got done if there wasn’t a steady line of communication between him and everyone else—but something caught his eye, _again_. A little blob, shifting on the rooftop not even a quarter of a kilometer away from them.

“Could you do me a favour?”

He didn’t have to look to know Hoseok’s eyes were rounded in shock. “You’re kinda the boss. You don’t need favours.”

“This has nothing to do with any sort of job,” Kihyun mumbled. “I need you to take Hyunwoo and scope out that building over there.” He pointed to where he’d seen the shifting silhouette. “I don’t need someone looking into my office.”

“Your glass is one-way,” Hoseok reminded him.

“That building just went up. There’s no reason for anyone to be sitting up there.”

“And if it’s just some kid having fun?”

“Count for me the number of times you walked through the Pangyo Tech Valley at five in the afternoon, on a _Thursday,_ because you wanted to wreak some havoc.”

Hoseok whistled lowly. “Fair enough. Hyunwoo and I’ll leave as soon as it’s dark.”

“Oh, and Hoseok?”

Hoseok didn’t reply, but the fact that the door hadn’t closed meant he was still here. So Kihyun said, “You all need to stop questioning me.”

“Questioning and listening aren’t mutually exclusive, Kihyun.”

It was so annoyingly cryptic that Kihyun was left thinking about it for the next hour as he watched the vacant rooftop. Not once did the form appear again, and not once did Kihyun catch another glint of whatever _it_ had been.

He picked up his pen, adding to his list.

  1. _Check security of the office; test the glass, functionality of the alarm, etc._



He was caught between calling himself paranoid and justifying his fear. After all, he’d gotten this far on being all sorts of cautious. There had to be some merit to it.

If Kihyun slid an extra knife into the holster at his arm, and triple checked the bullets loaded into his handgun, then that was just a healthy amount of self-preservation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come say hi or yell at me on [curious cat](https://curiouscat.qa/runningwstars)?
> 
> follow me on [twitter!](https://twitter.com/runningwstars)


	3. Chapter 2

It wasn’t that Hoseok thought Kihyun was paranoid. If there was enough reason for the man to have drawn his gun—about as rare a sight as him doing the polka—then it warranted a look or three.

His problems lay elsewhere. “Do you ever worry about Kihyun keeping his hands clean?”

Hyunwoo glanced him sidelong from the passenger’s seat, expression only giving way to his brand of delicate consideration. “How do you mean?”

“I mean. The puppeteer doesn’t suffer when the strings are cut. He just makes new ones.”

“You think Kihyun wouldn’t do his best to keep the strings intact?”

“I think,” Hoseok said carefully, “that I should be a little more concerned for my safety. The fall isn’t going to be roses and peaches.”

“Let’s say you got arrested.” Hyunwoo pointed out their next turn. “You would be offered a pretty good deal if they thought they could take down you _and_ your boss in one go. Would you take it?”

“Would I rat him out?” Hoseok asked, maybe a little more incredulous than was necessary.

“Yeah.”

“No!” The very thought bore a hole in his gut, acidic and bright. Whether it was fear or loyalty was a whole other matter.

“And that goes both ways. If anything, he’ll get dinged with a heavier sentence because of how many people point their fingers at him.”

Hoseok sighed as he put the car in park a block or so away from the newly erected building. “I hope you know I have no plans of. Like. Defecting.”

“I know.”

“It’s just. Sometimes it feels like he’s a one-man band.”

“It does.”

“And he doesn’t want anyone else touching the baton, or the keys, or the horn.”

“Good analogy.”

“You’re just listening to me ramble at this point, aren’t you?”

Hyunwoo’s lips quirked up. “I’m multitasking. Listening to you, parsing out advice, watching that man across the street dial his superiors in a panic.”

Hoseok knew better than to turn around, but that didn’t stop his heart from doing a flip. “You think he’s a threat?”

“Kihyun? Maybe only to himself. That guy across the street? Might cause us some problems if we make ourselves known right now.”

“It’s not like we have signs on our heads that say ‘Members of a gang!’”

“No,” Hyunwoo agreed, “but you’re built like a brick shithouse. If he’s looking for you, he’s certainly going to be trigger happy with that phone of his.”

Hoseok slumped in his seat. “My muscles are plenty useful.”

“That they are. But there are also very few men in this district with your build.”

Well . . . Hyunwoo wasn’t wrong. “He should have sent Jooheon.”

“That’s like chucking a cat into a cold bath filled with dogs.”

“Sure,” Hoseok grumbled, “but that’s as incognito as it gets.”

“If we get up to the roof of that building and we need to . . . be _resourceful_ , who do you think is better suited for the job?”

Hoseok didn’t like the image of Jooheon running for his life, let alone twenty-five storeys in the sky. “You’re like a bubble-gum machine of advice today, aren’t you? I think I’m running out of quarters.”

“He left,” was all Hyunwoo said. “Let’s go.”

“ _Now?”_ Hoseok stressed. “Isn’t it a little too soon? For all we know he went out to get backup.”

“Do you want to _wait_ for that backup to arrive?”

“What happened to being careful?”

Hyunwoo, for all his useful, easily accessible advice, was not perfect; he paused at the criticism, mouth set in concentration as he relaxed into his seat. “You’re right. So, what’s more important: speed or stealth?”

Once, Kihyun had taken Hoseok and Minhyuk to scope out a potential trade location. Halfway through the drive there, they caught wind of a change in plans. Kihyun hadn’t taken his foot off the gas, and, when they settled into their lookout points, told them all to wait. They’d been there for four hours before someone finally walked into the building, six before they finally got the intel they’d come for. By hour seven they were walking out with a little more blood spilled than they’d planned. Kihyun was the only one refraining from complaining about his sore bones.

 _Time is a miniscule price to pay for precision_ , he’d said.

Hoseok’s one look at his phone in the cupholder between them was all the answer Hyunwoo needed. “I figured,” he said.

“Kihyun’s methods get results.”

Silence fell between them, charged and not quite comfortable. In the moments they waited, Hyunwoo made note of the man’s appearance, phone model, and temperament. When Hoseok had been a newer recruit for the team, it had seemed asinine, all the note-taking and detailed recollections.

Then he’d watched Jooheon pin down a woman’s location off the scent of her perfume and the kind of shoes she wore, and learned to stop questioning it.

Ten minutes ticked by, and not one sign of any reinforcements.

“Maybe the guy was panicked over something else?” Hoseok offered.

“We’re not sticking around to find out.”

The building under Kihyun’s scrutiny was a new construction, and thus was vacant. The front desk was unmanned, no bustle from the stairways. Marble flooring nearly spun under their feet with how bright it was, sleek walls giving the illusion of pressing in. Chandeliers winked at them, a million eyes following their movements as they made their way to the elevators. It was exactly the sort of nauseating propriety that he’d strayed from in his youth, and he took no enjoyment in being knee-deep in it right now.

Hyunwoo eyed the pair of buttons mounted on the wall before shaking his head. “We might bring more attention to ourselves if we use the elevator.”

With no objection, Hoseok easily followed Hyunwoo up the multiple flights of stairs. The rhythmic tapping of their feet against the polished steps gave him a moment to think—to retrace his steps as far as his interaction with Kihyun hours before.

Kihyun was not immune to bad days; despite the impenetrable cool in his eyes, there was a human heart beating right beneath it.

Well. Maybe not _right_ beneath. Kihyun’s job was, despite appearance, a gruesome one, which didn’t allow for much heart and soul. What truly struck Hoseok as odd about the whole thing was the way he’d worded his frustration:

_You all need to stop questioning me._

The stress in his voice had been evident, but the cause of it was elusive. Last Hoseok had checked, it had only been a meeting with Hyungwon regarding plans to stake their claim on a floundering neighbourhood. Refurbishing, investments, protection—all to be discussed and refined like pottery; delicately mould it to your vision, but shock it too quickly and you shatter the thing. And, for _years_ , police officers had been waiting for something to shatter. For an indication of their presence so that they could be arrested and stopped for good.

Kihyun may share a million and one characteristics with a control freak, but he knew the best way to keep their structure form breaking to bits.

They reached the top flight without ceremony, even if the glaring letters gave them pause.

**EMERGENCY USE ONLY.**  
ALARM WILL SOUND WHEN PUSHED.  
**₩** **1,000,000 FINE FOR MISFIRE.**

Hoseok chewed on his cheek. “Kihyun saw someone up here. So.”

“They either knew how to disable the alarm . . .”

“Or the alarm isn’t working,” he finished.

“If we’re wrong, Kihyun is going to make broth out of our bones.”

Hoseok pressed his palm to the door’s metal bar, cool enough to send goosebumps crawling up his arm. Hyunwoo was right to say that Kihyun would be pissed off to the point of killing them, but there were more players on the board—many, _many_ more.

“This is reckless.”

Still, Hoseok pushed open the door.

The second it took for the door to swing open stretched thin like molten glass, hot in his ears and hissing panicked breaths. Was that the beginning of trouble, or just his troubled heart?

Nothing came. No blaring alarm, no sirens’ wail.

Hoseok didn’t waste time; he rushed over to the ledge of the building and took out a flashlight. Hyunwoo wordlessly took the other side of the building, the one which faced Kihyun’s office. A moment later he was hissing at Hoseok to come over.

“What?” Hoseok whispered as he stopped beside him. But he needed no more explanation when he saw what had sent Hyunwoo into a mild panic.

A magazine.

“ _Changkyun_ would shit himself if he saw the size of that thing,” Hyunwoo mumbled. Seeing him so concerned was disconcerting, but more than that—more than _that_ was the fact that someone had been up here, with a rifle, aimed right at Kihyun’s skull for who knew how long.

“We’re going to test that theory,” Hoseok decided aloud, “because between him and Jooheon, surely they can find out where the fuck someone got a rifle like that.”

As if the sun had begun to rise, purple flooded his vision in bursts and streaks. A glance at the sky told him it was still the moon’s turn to shine, which meant—

“ _Cops._ ”

Hoseok’s heart went into free-fall from an unknowable altitude, with the air too thin and the drop invisible.

Hyunwoo sucked on his tongue for just a second before saying, “Silent alarm.”

They were already making for the fire escape. “What kind of headquarters has a _silent_ fire alarm?” Nothing could have prepared them for this sort of trap—not when the only businesses in true need of silent alarm were ones who handled finance and finery.

Hyunwoo swung his legs over the ledge of the building still shrouded in shadow, Hoseok not far behind. “The sort that is going to give us a lot of trouble.”

Hoseok had no room for argument with grating sirens in his ear and too many colours searing his vision.

Walking through the doors with neon signs would have been stealthier than _this_. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come talk to me on [curious cat!](https://curiouscat.qa/runningwstars)?
> 
> I'll be taking [commissions](https://twitter.com/runningwstars) soon so if you like stuff like this . . . give me a chance ?


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